With Marcel Kittel, John Degenkolb and Koen De Kort out of the picture, Giant-Shimano proved that they are always up for a sprint. Today it was TT specialist Tom Dumoulin who did surprisingly well by taking fourth.

Tom Dumoulin took an impressive fourth place at the finish of stage eight at Le Tour de France from a much reduced front group. Dumoulin had hills to tackle and crashes to avoid  in the closing stages of the race before positioning himself perfectly but just lacking a bit of speed at the finish.

Two short sharp climbs in the final 20km served to split up the peloton and numerous crashes in the run in also broke up the bunch, but Dumoulin held his position and came through to the front under the flame rouge to sit in third wheel heading towards the finishing straight.

He unleashed his sprint and was only over powered in the final metres by three others leaving him in fourth. The stage win went to Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma – Quickstep) while other Team Giant-Shimano sprinters John Degenkolb and Marcel Kittel came home several minutes down after losing contact on the first of the two climbs.

The second longest stage of the Tour, at 234.5km, got underway with dry roads and a fair breeze and it didn’t take long for a break to establish itself. Six riders moved clear but their efforts were well policed by several different teams with an eye on the stage win later on. It was a day off pace making duties for Team Giant-Shimano after the hard efforts of the previous days with the hills at the end too much for a sprinter like Kittel, while Degenkolb was still suffering from his torn gluteus maximus from his stage five fall.

This meant that Koen De Kort and Tom Dumoulin had a free reign in the latter stages to go for a result. Despite some crosswind action in the middle of the stage briefly causing splits in the bunch, the bulk of the race came back together with around 20km to go, just as the peloton approached the first of the two late climbs.

The pace was ramped up and immediately the bunch splintered, but with the team having placed Dumoulin and De Kort for the base of the climb the team were still represented at the front.

The pace then continued to go up as they raced down the other side and into the final hill which was where the race fell apart for De Kort. Avoiding a crash, De Kort had to take the off-road option but this had the knock on effect of throwing his chain off, leaving him to put it back on before chasing to try and regain contact.

Dumoulin meanwhile was sitting safely in the front group. Two riders pulled clear over the top of the final ascent and pulled out around a hundred metres advantage but the race came back together in the final two kilometres before the 20 or so riders left at the front sprinted out the stage honours. Dumoulin was on the wheel of Trentin heading into the last few hundred metres and launched his sprint from here but he did not have the speed to come past before the line, leaving him in a very respectable fourth place.

It is another strong and promising result from the 23-year-old who keeps going from strength to strength, and this Tour will be another great opportunity for him to keep learning and developing over the course of the whole the three weeks.

After the stage Dumoulin said: “It was a difficult stage today and the final was much harder than we expected. As a result there was just a small group left at the finish but I was able to stick with the pace and go for the sprint.

“I didn’t feel super at the start of the day but I followed the groups on the hills and stayed in front until the final. I came up into position in the final kilometre and managed to get on Trentin’s wheel for the sprint which was perfect.

“The plan was to attack but I couldn’t find the right moment as the pace was too high. I know I am not the best sprinter so I am pretty happy with fourth place.”

Koen De Kort added: “I felt pretty good until the base of the last climb where I dropped my chain when I had to go round some riders off road. I had to put it back on with my finger and so I started too far back and ended up getting dropped. I really think that otherwise I could have survived the climb and I would like to have sprinted against Trentin and see how I get on there – I really think I had a good chance of a nice result today.”

Team captain on the road, Roy Curvers said from the team bus: “It was once again really hectic. The speed really went up after the climbs and everybody was taking risks. We managed to get Tom into a good position for the climbs though and it worked out with a nice result.”